Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First
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The Kimball Dead Eye Shooters are no stranger to the National Competition. This week, they will return their with their eyes on the prize. “The Daisy competition takes place in a convention center in Rogers, Arkansas, which is the headquarters of the Daisy manufacturing company. They have this in a hotel, and it takes place over about four days. We have families that are attending. There is no entry fee for the competition. Daisy provides us the entry fee, and they actually give us $1,000.” Nic...
The building that once housed West Elementary School changed hands at the auction put on by L.E.S. Realty, Co. on June 14, with Kimball Health Services purchasing the property. The back of the room in the old school building where the auction was set to take place was packed with people on cell phones serving as proxies for potential buyers as Dan Acheson sat in the front of the room on a stool, microphone in hand, water bottle at his side, and ready to start. The first round of the auction...
Carla Gunn, the new pastor at the United Methodist Church here in Kimball, is a great example of the fact that it is never too late to find your calling in life. Gunn, 60, started attending seminary school at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City when she was in her 50's. However, this was not her first brush with holding a leadership position in a Christian setting. "I started out in education, and then I moved into Christian education. It just was like God was calling me all along and preparing me," Gunn said. Before coming to Kimball,...
Editor’s Note: This is the final segment of a three-part series on the Wheat Growers Hotel, located in Kimball, NE. There will be coverage of any new developments concerning the property. “The Wheat Growers has enjoyed good times, survived bad times, adapted with changing times, and projects a link from the past to the future.” The Wheat Growers Hotel, fondly nicknamed the “Grand Ole’ Lady”, closed its doors for the final time to the public in 1983. Since that time, many dreamers have come t...
What will become of Chestnut Street? That was the question on the minds of everyone who attended the City Council meeting the night of June 4, with much of the discussion of what to do to keep the street in good condition after it is relinquished to the city of Kimball by the state of Nebraska. Mayor James Schnell opened the meeting by introducing Doug Hoevet, the Nebraska Department of Roads District Construction Engineer for District Five which includes Kimball. According to Hoevet, Chestnut...
Over the past five decades, generations of Kimball residents have passed LorRon Department Store while driving down East 2nd Street. Many have probably peered into its windows at the quaint antiques stored inside. However, fewer residents may know that the store has been around for nearly half a century. The business was first opened by Ames Hartung, Chuck Joplin, and Waldamar Muehlberger in 1960 under the name Hartung’s Department Store. The store at that time was stocked with a full line of m...
After serving seven years as the Superintendent of Kimball Public Schools, Troy Unzicker will be leaving his office in the Kimball Junior/Senior High School after a long day of work for the final time at the end of the month. Unzicker will be taking over the superintendent position for the public school system in Alliance, Nebraska July 1. “Sometimes I wonder, ‘Why am I leaving? It’s such a good position and I like what I’m doing here,’ but Alliance just was a good opportunity for me,” Unzicker said. Looking back on his seven years working for...
Kimball served as the first host city for the 33rd annual Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska (BRAN) trip across the state this past weekend. Riders began pouring into the city of Kimball in the early afternoon of Saturday, June 1, on their way to the high school where they set up tents and took in a mandatory meeting in the High School auditorium. By the end of the day, the practice field at the Kimball Junior/Senior High School was filled with a sea of tents as nearly 650 BRAN participants hunkered...
Senator Deb Fischer stopped by Kimball May 28, to give residents an update on what she has been working on for the people of Nebraska. Fischer walked into the Plains Historical Museum around 1:30 p.m. where she was greeted by a modest crowd of Kimball residents eager to hear what she had to say. Senator Fischer touched on topics such as the recent scandals that have rocked Washington, the Farm Bill, and took time to comment on the perception that everything in Washington is gridlocked and that...
Editor’s Note: This is the second segment of a three-part series on the Wheat Growers Hotel, located in Kimball, NE. The final segment will run in early June. “After more than 40 years, are the memories put to rest--or will they continue with me?” - Betty Bouck, Western Nebraska Observer, Thursday, March 1, 1979. After the fall of Frank Cunningham’s empire and the initial closing of the Wheat Growers Hotel, the building stood vacant, much the same as it does now. The only difference being that t...
A former Kimball High School graduate, Hunter Baliman, received the Spirit of Mitchell Technical Institute Award during his recent graduation ceremony from Mitchell Technical Institute in Mitchell, South Dakota. Baliman received the award for his exemplary work while attending the Culinary Academy of South Dakota, a program within the institute. According to Baliman, this was no easy feat as the award is given to a student who does as much as possible for the good of the program over the two years that students are part of the culinary...
Local resident Tom Hewitt proves the saying that age is just a number. Hewitt is the fastest duelist in the world for people ages 65-69. He gained this title by participating in the Huntsman World Senior Games in October of 2012 in St. George, Utah. The Hunstman Senior Games began in 1987 as the World Senior Games and was founded by Daisy and John H. Morgan, Jr. with the idea that the golden years were better when good health and physical fitness became an way of life instead of an occasional...
The gas line that burst in the early hours of May 4 north of Bushnell near where County Road 17 and County Road 48 intersect has been repaired and is currently running at a limited capacity. Residents of Bushnell and the surrounding area in Kimball county had been rocked out of their sleep the morning of May 4 by a loud boom that caused them to call their neighbors to see if a house had exploded, according to statements previously made by Kimball County Highway Superintendent Dave Hottell....
Elementary students at Mary Lynch and West Elementary have been participating in a program entitled “Links of Love” the past month in order to raise money for the Kimball Relay for Life. Quite incredibly, the elementary students raised a total of $1,349.60. Mary Lynch second grade teacher Amy McManigal, who sits on the Relay for Life committee, came up with the idea for “Links of Love” after looking through the Relay for Life website in order to find a way to get kids involved. After browsing through different ideas on the website, McManig...
The City Council and the Board of Education approved a motion to let the Kimball Police Department move forward with acquiring a School Resource Officer at the their meetings the nights of May 7 and May 13, respectively. However, the approval comes with a few conditions. Most notably, the position’s salary must be funded by grant money. Police Chief Darren Huff has already found a potential grant that would cover the position for the first three years. “This is a 2013 grant that will cover up to 75 percent of the approved entry level sal...
“This new hotel is a great addition to Kimball, and it is safe to say that Kimball people appreciate it. The furniture, carpets and in fact the hotel as a whole, is equal to those of the large cities.” – The Western Nebraska Observer, Thursday, January 9, 1919. The brick-covered Wheat Growers Hotel has long since been vacated, and is devout of any of its former glory that was detailed over 90 years ago. This iconic building was a marvel to the public when it first opened in early 1919 under...
A loud boom rocked residents north of the Bushnell area out their peaceful slumbers in the early hours of Saturday, May 4, as a gas line burst in Kimball county. Kimball County Highway Superintendent Dave Hottell brought the matter to the attention of the Board of County Commissioners at their May 7 meeting. According to Hottell, he discovered people working on the line as he was driving around inspecting the county roads. “There’s a gas line that runs catty corner across the county. It’s like...
The new Economic Development Director for the city of Kimball, Wilson Bowling, started work here in city offices April 29. Bowling, a longtime resident of Alabama with undergraduate and graduate degrees from Auburn University, was originally informed about the job listing in Kimball through the Nebraska Economic Development Association’s website. “The city here posted the job quite a few places in order to attract outside talent. I found it on there, applied, and for some reason they hired me,...
Construction on Highway 71 and Highway 30 has left roads bare for the past couple weeks, leaving many residents to wonder when the recent maintenance will be completed. According to Kimball Street Superintendent Jim Ryschon, residents will not have to wait much longer to drive down the roads without the fear of running into unexpected bumps. “They’re going to start overlaying the asphalt downtown Saturday morning weather permitting, and then continue that Monday and finish the downtown. I don...
Brian Evertson, a Senior at the Kimball High School, was recently accepted into the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. This was no easy feat as Annapolis receives 20,000 or more applications every year and only accepts just 1,200 students in each Freshman class. Not only is it an arduous application process, but in order to get in to the academy one has to put in a lot of work in school to be considered for the academy. “Once you get all your forms completed, it’s just a waiting game. It’s a lot of work. It’s not just all the a...
Carma Weisbrook’s fifth grade classroom at Mary Lynch Elementary has been ranked a Top 100 classroom in the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! Program. The BOOK IT! Program is a sixth month reading program for elementary students that focuses on motivating children to read more and helping them develop a lifelong love of reading. Weisbrook’s classroom logged 143,760 minutes of reading this past run of the program to place 65th on the Top 100 list. With over 14 million students in 680,000 classrooms across the...
The City of Kimball has found a new police chief to take over the spot vacated by former Police Chief Mark Simpson. Captain Darren Huff, who has worked in law enforcement for approximately 16 years, was approved by the City Council at their April 22 meeting to take over the Kimball Police Department as police chief. “I had the option as the mayor of opening this up for people to apply for the position of chief of police or go within our own ranks and assign someone to that,” Mayor James Sch...
Mark Simpson, the Chief of Police for the city of Kimball, has turned in his letter of resignation from his position, according to Mayor James Schnell with a copy of that letter being released to this paper. “It is truly with a heavy heart that I resign as Chief of Police of the City of Kimball,” Simpson’s resignation letter began. “I want the council to know that it has been a privilege for me to be able to be part of your lives and the lives of the citizens of Kimball.” The letter goes on t...
The idiom “any port in a storm” certainly applies to the many travelers who were brought into town to stay overnight, because of the closing of I-80 during the recent snow storm that hit the area. However, out of the unfortunate circumstance that led people having to pull off the interstate for the night comes a story that shows just how much heart and kindness residents of Kimball county truly have and show to their fellow man. Joe Trujillo and Jess Valdez of Pueblo, Colorado had been traveling west along I-80 trying to get to Cheyenne to get...
In a special meeting held on April 1 by the Board of Education, the board moved to accept the resignations and approve the buyout offers of four teachers of the Kimball School District. Among the teachers who have resigned are Emily Brooks, Junior-Senior High Art teacher, Kathleen O’Brien, Theresa Fiorelli, and Linda Mihm with O’Brien, Fiorelli, and Mihm accepting buyout offers from the district. The resignations come from an offer that Superintendent Troy Unzicker extended to veteran teachers in order to avoid the termination of the newer tea...